Round Face Shape (Men): How to Tell, and What Actually Works

A round face is one where the length and the width are close to equal, the widest point is across the cheekbones, and the jaw has no visible corner.

The measurements

• Length-to-width ratio under about 1.25
• Cheekbone width is the largest of the three widths, but only modestly
• Gonial angle above about 125 degrees, meaning the jaw curves rather than turns
• Chin is rounded rather than pointed or squared

What it is not

If your length-to-width ratio is closer to 1.4, you have an oval face, and most of the styling advice below does not apply to you. Oval faces do not need correction.

If your jaw has a visible corner and your three widths are close to equal, you have a square face even if you are as wide as you are long. Square and round get confused constantly, and the advice for each is close to opposite. Square faces are usually softened. Round faces are usually lengthened.

A common reason men self-diagnose as round when they are not: body fat above roughly 18 to 20 percent adds soft tissue across the cheeks and under the jaw, which flattens the gonial angle and widens the lower third. This changes how a face reads without changing its underlying bone geometry. If your face has become rounder in the last few years, that is likely what happened, and it is reversible in a way that bone structure is not.

The styling principle

Everything below follows from one idea: a round face benefits from added vertical length and reduced horizontal width.

Hair adds visual mass wherever you put it. Volume on top makes the face read longer. Width at the sides makes it read wider. So the working template is height on top, tight at the sides, and nothing that adds bulk at ear level.

Facial hair works the same way in the opposite direction. Growth concentrated at the chin extends the face downward. Growth across the cheeks widens it.

The mistake almost everyone makes is treating this as a rule rather than a direction. You are not trying to make a round face look oblong. You are shifting the proportions a few degrees, and past a certain point the correction starts to look like a costume.

Read next:

• Best haircuts for a round face →
• Best beard styles for a round face →